The invention relates to an apparatus for the forming of stacks of products cut up into slices in a rapid sequence, in particular food products, such as ham, sausage, cheese and the like, with a portioning band associated with a cutting device, in particular a slicer, and with a transport band, which takes over the respectively finished stack from the portioning band.
It is known to cut up food products to form slice stacks by means of slicers, i.e. cutting apparatuses with a high cutting frequency, with the height of fall of individual slices cut off from the product differing in dependence on the stack that is forming. This different height of fall leads to a situation in which no adequately precisely aligned vertical stack arises but rather, in relation to the transport band, which, as a rule, receives the stack and stands still during the stack formation, an offset arises in the direction of the transport band and also a lateral offset. The offset which occurs in the transport band direction can be counteracted by corresponding control of the transport band, but the lateral offset, which originates from a component of movement imparted to the respective slice by the cutting knife cannot be compensated, or can only be compensated by tolerating other disadvantages.
It is already known to effect the stack formation on a lowerable portioning band in order to achieve a substantially constant height of fall of individual slices. As the portioning band, after transfer of the finished stack to the transport band, must first be returned again into its starting position close to the knife for the formation of the next stack, comparatively long time intervals, in which empty cuts have to be executed, arise between the individual stack forming procedures, which leads to considerable performance penalties.
Furthermore, it is already known to use so-called paddle arrangements for the stack formation, which are lowered during the stack formation and which transfer the respectively finished stack onto a transport band. The known paddle arrangement is complicated construction-wise and not suitable to satisfy the requirements of high working speeds and working precision with the slicers which become ever more powerful.